For fans of New York–iana, including historic preservation buffs as well as collectors of true crime, eccentrics, and odd...
A septet of Manhattan buildings becomes the setting for this study of prewar comings and goings on the part of their wealthy, famous, and criminal inhabitants.
Pity Bernard McMahon, aka Bennie the Bum, who, in 1934, had the bad fortune to blow his kneecap off accidentally after taking part in a notorious armed robbery that “was then the most lucrative armored car heist in United States history.” Bennie bled out and died, making his association with Legs Diamond all the more ironic—though, as New York Times reporter and editor Wakin writes, John Dillinger may also have played a part in the caper, and just about anyone who was anyone in the Gotham crime scene came under suspicion. McMahon’s case lies at the heart of the book, which centers on a group of seven stately Beaux Arts buildings on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, buildings whose fortunes have waxed and waned and waxed again. Among the inhabitants he profiles are Marion Davies, the one-time mistress of media mogul William Randolph Hearst, and Lucretia Davis, heir to a baking powder fortune, who, as a widow, “shocked and outraged the circle of family who experienced her benevolence” by marrying her chauffeur, then had the marriage annulled but sold off one of the buildings in order, Wakin speculates, to buy him off. Other figures in the book include Jokichi Takamine, a Japanese inventor well-known in his native land but obscure here; members of the of-pencil-fame Faber family; and jazz great Duke Ellington. Wakin never goes deep, and though his book is gossipy fun, it might have been more effective if confined to the Rubel heist itself, which is a fascinating case study in crime and (eventual) punishment in the heyday of organized crime. Some of the force of that story is diluted by side tracks into the less interesting, though still meaningful, threads involving the lesser players.
For fans of New York–iana, including historic preservation buffs as well as collectors of true crime, eccentrics, and odd moments.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62872-845-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
